22 replies to this topic

[milkman]

I've posted this topic on other forums, and it all leads to heated debate with a lot of yelling and arguing...just what I love =).

My debate -

YES. Truman did the right thing when he dropped the bomb on Japan. It very effectivly ended the war in the pacific for us, pulling us completly out of WWII and conquering the last of the Axis Powers. If Germany would have discovered the A-Bomb first, they would have used it against us. We knew how defistating the bomb would be to civilain lives, and that is a bummer. But our other option was to not drop the bomb, invade Japan, and lose MORE men, on both sides of the war. Hiroshima was picked because it is surrounded by a mountain range, isolating the radiation damage. There was also many war factories there. It was a place that would show the Japanese the real power of the A-Bomb.

Death tolls:

Population. The estimated pre-bomb population was 300,000 to 400,000. Because official documents were burned, the exact population is uncertain. Deaths. With an uncertain population figure, the death toll could only be estimated. According to data submitted to the United Nations by Hiroshima City in 1976, the death count reached 140,000 (plus or minus 10,000) by the end of December, 1945. Health Card Holders. Persons qualifying for treatment under the A-bomb Victims Medical Care law of 1957 received Health Cards; holders as of March 31, 1990, numbered 352,550. Nagasaki. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki exploded at 11:02 A.M. on August 9. Using plutonium with an explosive power of 20 kilotons of TNT-equivalent, it left an estimated 70,000 dead by the end of 1945, although both population and the deaths are uncertain.Millions couldnt of died if there wasn't even a million people living in both those cities combined.

Source:
http://mothra.rerf.o....y/Damages.html

Official Japanese figures at the time put the death toll at 118,661 civilians. But later estimates suggest the final toll was about 140,000, of Hiroshima's 350,000 population, including military personnel and those who died later from radiation. Many have also suffered long-term sickness and disability.
Three days later, the United States launched a second, bigger atomic bomb against the city of Nagasaki. The device known as "Fat man", after Winston Churchill, weighed nearly 4,050 kg (nearly 9,000lb).
Nagasaki is surrounded by mountains and because of this the level of destruction was confined to about 2.6 square miles or 6.7 square kilometres.
Nearly 74,000 were killed and a similar number injured.


Again 140,000 Hiroshima 74,000 Nagasaki. Not even a million people total.


Source:
http://news.bbc.co.u...000/3602189.stm

[dolphinbomb]

I've posted this topic on other forums, and it all leads to heated debate with a lot of yelling and arguing...just what I love =).

So in other words, you're flamebaiting?

GTFO.

[Waser Lave]

If they had developed the A-Bomb first, do you think they wouldn't have dropped it on America?

We'll never know how many more people would have died had the fighting continued if Japan had not surrendered then, so it's difficult to measure its true impact.

As the saying goes, "all's fair in love and war".

[414de7fe6]

I'm not quite sure why anyone cares.

It stopped a war at the price of millions. Though, it stopped millions more from suffering. And the immediate death that most were given is one of the nicer ways to die. And the prolonged, extremely painful days/years that others suffered is by far the worst death anyone could die.

It evens out. Should the bomb not have been dropped, the war would of continued, and the war would have escalated to a point where even if it had stopped, Japan and USA never would have gotten along again.

[Nick]

This happened 60 years ago, and it's over and done with. Most of the people that were alive then and survived the attack are dead from natural causes now anyway, so just forget about it.

[Regental]

You should never forget history otherwise it is doomed to repeat itself again. Although I guess none of you ever took history, it explains your idiotic views on this subject.

[Gen]

Must to say one thing... Anyone here did ever read the book Jesus factor(Or Factor Jesus Idk the name in english XD)? Is about hiroshima, tehre they said that wasn't an nuclear bomb, but a lot of bombs together o.õ
I don't know, I believe they put a nuclear bomb u.u'. But why they didn't put on tokyo? I think they didn't just to make with the japaneses get afraid from US, if they didn't do this probably Japan would take one A-Bomb at US...US was just...Smart...
And about saying that already happen and is over and etc: History is always good to know, as regental said, if we forget the history the same mistakes would be maked again =(
Hiroshima wasn't a big city, so this make my thinking about they just put the bomb to make Japan with afraid is more valuable, lets talk about this XD

xD I already puted the answer was just put the question for those who think it hehe XD Thats my opnion of the why they didn't put the bomb in tokyo, nice speak, Cript!

Edited by G3N3R4T10N, 11 December 2006 - 09:10 AM.

[Cript]

This is probably the greatest topic for debate in our country's history. There are two types of weapons: conventional and unconventional. The primary difference is that conventional weapons target military while unconventional target civilians. In this case, it was obvious we needed to strike back and do so very hard. Unfortunately, Truman had to choose between American military lives (those assumed to be lost in future conventional attacks) and Japanese Civilian lives (those assumed to be lost in the a-bomb attack.) With our nationalistic feelings behind him, the very same feelings after 9/11, he was able to provide a counter-attack that in any other situation would've been very much unacceptable. The primary driver for this manhattan project was in no way dropping it on Japan, it was basically so we could develop it before Germany did. Then, bam...pearl harbor happened and we had our target. The bomb was intended to strike fear into a country that viewed surrender as an unacceptable choice. There would've been no end to the loss of lives had we engaged in a conventional war with the Japanese because they would've been very very difficult to force into a surrender situation. By dropping the a-bomb, however; we showed that we would have no problem doing so over and over again if it meant saving our own troops. You can really see how liberal our country has become by considering the difference in population between then and now. The world and most liberals would never accept us choosing American military over another country's civilians. If you're going to ask for my opinion on the subject, I have a great deal of problems with both sides of the argument but will still back Truman's decision. The Japanese led a methodical, pre-meditated massacre against a neutral country in a war and it was our country's decision to let them and the world know that our response to this ever happening again would be so large and painful that any country considering attacking us like that again should be ready for all out domination. If you're going to say, "oh, they were civilians and we never should've attacked them, etc.; I have to reply that the Japanese military made their decision and their civilians sometime have to live with that decision. Again, it's very unfortunate that something happened like this and it was truly a gruesome site (I've read and seen tons and tons of stuff about Hiroshima and written at least 10 reports on it over the years.) It was a disgusting act for the Japanese to attack a country without being provoked so one would say that they got what was coming...they basically killed/wounded 4,000 military personnel; so we turned around and killed over 300,000 civilians...as I said, it was more of a "do that shit again and see what happens) response by us. I'll elaborate more later if I have time. Great great debate topic!

Must to say one thing... Anyone here did ever read the book Jesus factor(Or Factor Jesus Idk the name in english XD)? Is about hiroshima, tehre they said that wasn't an nuclear bomb, but a lot of bombs together o.õ
I don't know, I believe they put a nuclear bomb u.u'. But why they didn't put on tokyo?

It was definitely a nuclear bomb...the radiation lasted plenty of time as did the mutations etc. The reason they didn't bomb Tokyo was primarily because we wanted to hit both a military and industrial strength that wouldn't be well-defended. There's a good chance the Enola Gay would've been shot down were it trying to attack Tokyo, not to mention that we completely wiped Hiroshima off the map, whereas we'd have just dented Tokyo...much more of a devastating effect on morale.

Oh, and it's "Should we have dropped"

Edited by Cript, 11 December 2006 - 09:09 AM.

[Ives]

It doesn't concern me, because at the end, it panned out well for Japan. Yes, it was horrible what happened to the civilians, but it could have been horribly worse, and we did at least strive efforts to apologize for problems caused and helped them upon surrendering. Though of course, because of bias around the world, Japan will say that they surrendered first, but that is a good question of debate.

Oh, the other reason is because we already did a large attack on Tokyo, which killed thousands of people over in that area.

[milkman]

This happened 60 years ago, and it's over and done with. Most of the people that were alive then and survived the attack are dead from natural causes now anyway, so just forget about it.

That doesn't mean we can't debate about it. Besides that is a debate within itself...should we forget the holocaust?

@ The person that said I was flamebaiting (I haven't mastered multi-quote yet). I'm argue-baiting, and there is nothing wrong with arguing.

[Bryan]

Seeing as how my last post got invisible-ized, I'll post a better one =]

Honestly, I think that the atom bomb was a great choice by Truman. Not because of how it saved millions of american lives, and not because it, in effect, ended the war, but because we had it, and we used it.

There's no argument saying that Germany would've used the A-Bomb had it had knowledge of it. I find it funny how the atom bomb was created with the assistance of a german scientist who had to escape Germany. Germany had the knowledge, it just chose not to advance further to actually "create" this weapon.

People are people, whether soldiers or 80 year old grandparents. If one deserves to die, so should the other. Besides the fact that the Japanese military made it a point to teach combat strategies IN SCHOOLS, you can't value one human life over another.

[travis]

Pch...
Fuck'em.
Bomb them all.

[Regental]

Should we nuke Iraq to stop the war to stop thousands of lives being lost?

[Tetiel]

It is easy to say in hindsight that perhaps we shouldn't have dropped the atom bomb. We know the effects now that we didn't know before. There was no way to know the long term effects that this caused, the suffering that people endured for years to come from various cancers and other diseases. The scientists developing the bomb, they knew the effects of extreme radiation as one of their members died from it, however they knew nothing of the long term effects and how could they? It was such new technology.

But some history that not many know remains a mystery. The day they dropped the bomb it was very cloudy over Japan. Orders were given that the pilots must not drop the bomb over a city if they could not see it through the clouds. Originally there were three targets and two bombs. The cities were Nagasaki and another city which was a military base. For the life of me I cannot remember the name, but it started with an A. That city was abandoned as they could not see through the clouds. Nagasaki was a clear target and Hiroshima was "supposedly" too. Apparantly there was a break in the clouds claimed the pilots who switched targets though no weather reports claimed so. Perhaps there were no break in the clouds. Can one really blame them? The dangers of the failed mission were horrible. They would have to go back to the base with the atom bomb and land. Say something horrible happens and they foul up the landing, the whole base would explode and everyone would die. The whole purpose of the bombs would have been rendered useless. They were scared (that is if they did indeed go against orders) and rightfully so.

Also the scientists though perhaps they did not morally support the bombs use were scared. The government had just spent 2 million dollars on their project (a lot of money back then, HUGE amount). It would be in the scientists best interest if the bomb was used. If not they were afraid they would be thought of as useless so they pushed the bomb as well. There is also the factor that Japan was horribly weakened from the bombings already and some theorized were probably going to give up soon anyways as their military could not stand much more.

So in hindsight looking at all the factors, no, of course we should not have but instead done a demonstration bomb to show them the mass damage we could have done. But putting ourselves in the shoes of the leaders of the time I think it was the best decision they could have seen and most likely it would have been my choice as well.

[Sakura]

Should we nuke Iraq to stop the war to stop thousands of lives being lost?

Don't even try to compare the two.


This is World War II that we're talking about. It would not have stopped until the Axis powers had full control, and they obviously had no problem with killing millions to do it.
Yes, only because of the circumstances of this war was it an okay thing to do. It was a necessary thing to do. A necessary evil, but necessary none-the-less.

Sure, we probably didn't know it then, but when we went over there to help rebuild Japan, we brought them to what they are today. They didn't even have wide-spread electricty when we went there. This is the reason for seiyo suhai shugi, they themselves admit that without western influence, namely the USA, they would still be in the dark ages.

[Cript]

Should we nuke Iraq to stop the war to stop thousands of lives being lost?

Iraq never attacked us without being provoked...

[Gen]

bah, go see memoirs of a gueixa XD on the start they hated you, because you taked all their cultures, awesome culture, that was lost almost that forever...Now the people there have their heads on the future, but they should remember some of their costumes, culture is culture, and needs to be remembered, or is lost forever...

[Regental]

Iraq never attacked us without being provoked...

So if America gets an military based structure attacked, it's ok to nuke the hell out the offenders civillians?

[pyke]

Iraq never attacked us without being provoked...

Neither did Japan really.

I'd say it was acceptable to drop the bombs, given the circumstances.

[Cript]

Neither did Japan really.

How's that? We were quite neutral from a military standpoint (trading and sending stuff to our eventual allies not withstanding)

So if America gets an military based structure attacked, it's ok to nuke the hell out the offenders civillians?

There's quite a difference between 3000 people and thea mount of ships and planes we lost and "a military based structure" That being said...yes. If we're attacked by another country that we haven't provoked, and all things were equal we would attack them. Granted, MAD now governs the nuclear situation so that isn't an option unless we're nuked first...Good thing for cruise missiles.

[Regental]

Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. A very stereotypical view but it's yours so your entitled to it.

So lets take Saddam Huessin into account. If he died, went to heaven and was building a WMD site up in Heaven, would you bomb heaven?

[Cript]

Wow. Thanks for clearing that up. A very stereotypical view but it's yours so your entitled to it.

So lets take Saddam Huessin into account. If he died, went to heaven and was building a WMD site up in Heaven, would you bomb heaven?

South Park references aside...Didn't I just say that if no one launched a surprise attack against us first, we wouldn't attack with such a tenacious response?

[Regental]

Sorry, don't take me seriously, I was only messing with you.